Page 9 of Sure as Shooting

Philip Din chimed in. “Ashbury sleeps but little, can go days without food, and can run a hundred miles in a day over the mountains. See him sitting here around this campfire, as fresh and lively as if he’d just been taking a little walk? He hasn’t slept in three days. We had no fear of being able to find the Indians.”

Huntley became modest. “It’s not necessary, Din.” He was grateful for the way the company was sticking up for him, but he knew what was coming next.

“We can’t afford to lose you, Ashbury,” said Sheriff Burney. “You’re going to be a special mark for them, since you’ve refused to be their chief. We can’t dispense with your knowledge of Indians and their territory, but I can’t allow you to lead the attack tomorrow.”

Huntley leaped to his feet. “I can’t have that, sir!”

Burney stood too. “Ashbury! They’re going to focus their wrath on you—you’ll have twenty arrows sticking out of you, like your old partner Greeley.”

In frustration, Huntley pivoted to and fro. “I respectfully beg to differ!” He tried to lower his voice, as men around other campfires were already looking their way. It wouldn’t do to show dissent within the leadership of the expedition. “Burney. If you pull me out of the attack, it’ll make me look like a yellow chicken running around without a head, and no one will have any respect for anything I say. I’ll be the object of jokes.” He took a few deep breaths to calm himself. “Sheriff. I’ve seen more combat than most of these men put together”—he grinned sideways at the assayer Terrell, who had been alongside him in Frémont’s Battalion—“except maybe Terrell, and what I say is true. If anyone is to lead these men to the residence of His Satanic Majesty’s subjects, it’s me.”

“I second that,” growled Terrell, many others assenting as well.

Burney stuck out his lower lip thoughtfully. “All right, then. But listen. I can’t have my head scout operating like a dazed blubber-head with no sleep for four days. Get back to your horse this instant and hit the sack. Dr. Whitney!”

“Yes, sir.”

“I trust you can oversee this important order? Shut eyes, no rumbling around cussing—I don’t want to hear a peep!”

“Yeah!” admonished Terrell. “Nighty-night, Ashbury. Lights out.”

“I can see to that, sir,” Whit said seriously, and everyone laughed.

Huntley didn’t mind. He’d done all he could do for the day, and the attack was planned for first daylight. Being ordered to stand down from tomorrow’s attack made him far angrier than being told to go to bed. He could do with a good snooze.

So he said good night, and he and Whit meandered back to where their horses were picketed, Bud Pennington thankfully having been relegated to what in a normal army would have been the company of privates.

“No playing mumblety-peg,” called out Chandler, who ran the express office in Agua Fria.

Whit guffawed. “I’m sure I’m the only member of this company who agrees with Burney. You should have been taken out of combat, Huntley. I know you’re the last man to turn tail and run at any sign of a battle. But you might as well have a giant target on your back once those Indians get wind of you.”

Huntley rolled out his buffalo robe, placing his rifle upon it. Their horses had already been hobbled against Indian theft, although Huntley slept so lightly with one ear upon the ground, nothing had ever been stolen while he was in the vicinity. “I thought about that, Whit. I was thinking to disguise myself in something none of them’d expect to see me wearing.”

Ten feet away, Whit rolled out his own buffalo robe. “Oh yeah? What’s that?” He had a smile in his voice.

Huntley paused for effect. “Navy attire.” He was sufficiently proud of his machinations when he heard Whit gasp. “Frémont’s Battalion was issued official naval attire in ’46 in Monterey.” He placed his Navajo blanket atop the buffalo robe. That would keep the expected snow off him. “Now a bit tattered and well-worn, but you’ve seen those trousers, tight around the hips but hanging long and loose around the feet? Not much good for running through brush, but I can tie them at the ankles. I can hide my hair in a pigtail, and I kept a checked shirt that’ll make me resemble a sailor, sure as shooting.”

“Very devious of you,” Whit said with approval.

Huntley crawled between the two blankets with his moccasins still on, accustomed to making a quick getaway or fending off an attack in the middle of the night. “Yep. They even issued us drawers, and you thought I was a hopeless mountain man? Some of those battalion men didn’t know what to do with the drawers and would pull them over their buckskins.”

“You could try doing that, too,” Whit suggested. “Those Diggers would never suspect you of being so tomfool.”

Huntley sighed and drew his head kerchief down over his eyes. “Apparently, Whit, they would.”

The last thing Huntley heard before he sailed off into the black dreamless world was Whit saying, “All right, Captain. I’ll braid you a right smart sailor’s pigtail in the morning. No one will recognize you.”

* * * *

The presence of so many Chowchilla Indians, the most warlike tribe in California, had made this surprise attack necessary.

Huntley’s company numbered seventy-four, so he assumed this engagement would be easy sailing, since Indians were only armed with bows and arrows. On foot they followed the horse trail they had discovered yesterday, each man lost in his own thoughts, as they could not risk talking. Some of them, like the hotelkeeper, Boling, and Phil Din, the owner of the tenpin alley, had never engaged in combat before, and Huntley imagined they were sweating in their boots. Especially Boling, who, like him, had been a friend of the Indians and dreaded encountering a familiar face during the exchange.

As Huntley marched, more and more details of last night’s events seeped into his brain. He started to question their accuracy, having been blissfully groggy in his sack for several hours. He had the most amazing and piercing eyesight known to man, able to see great distances on a moonless night. He thought it was due to some fisticuffs he’d participated in as a lad, when his father had walloped him upside the head for refusing to learn to play the violin. The blow had left one pupil permanently dilated, giving Huntley a sort of crazed, epileptic look, like some soothsayer who could predict the future.

So it was entirely possible that during the night, Huntley had rolled over onto his side, alerted by a rasping sound, as though someone were rubbing their laundry against a rock. His eyes popped open, only to view the good doctor some ten feet away, lying on his back under his Navajo blanket, pumping his own cock assiduously.

Huntley stopped breathing. After a few more passionate strokes the doctor flipped the coverlet aside, exposing his dark cock to the freezing mountain air. The ridges of his lean abdomen shimmered and steamed in the frigid air as he raised himself on one elbow. He was angled toward Huntley as though purposefully displaying that imposing, lengthy cock. Indeed, it was more impressive than any penis Huntley had ever viewed—not that he made it a habit to view men’s erect cocks, so perhaps he was no expert. He knew that penis size when flaccid was no judge of how monumental it would later be when erect.